This is your last chance to apply for the Cycle to Work scheme before it closes on 29 October 2021.
The scheme has helped over 900 employees save up to 32% of the cost of buying a bicycle since it launched 10 years ago.
Operating as a salary sacrifice scheme, Cycle to Work allows you to lease a bike – including e-bikes – over the period of a year, paying 12 equal payments to cover the cost.
At the end of the hire period you can either enter a zero-cost extended hire arrangement, purchase the bike at the fair market value at the time (plus VAT) or return the bike to a Halfords store.
Five bikes and counting
If there was ever an advocate for the Cycle to Work scheme it has to be Richard Teed from Children’s Services who is now on his fifth bike!
He definitely knows his stuff after 15 years of cycling and currently has three bikes - a road bike, mountain bike but his favourite…. a gravel bike, bought earlier this year through the scheme.
Pre COVID-19 Richard cycled to work up to three times a week clocking up 15 miles each way from his home in Clackmannanshire to Sealock House in Grangemouth.
Richard said: “I’ve been a keen cyclist for a long time now and have been able to buy decent bikes through the Cycle to Work Scheme. You really get a significant discount and paying it up over the year really helps as its deducted straight from your salary.
“I also save on the fuel I would have used travelling to work by car which averages out at about £5 a day which adds up to a huge saving over the year.”
In addition to travelling to work on one of his many bikes, Richard also enjoys lots of adventures in his free time. Following the long winter lock down and feeling like a caged tiger he spent six days cycling around Mull from Ballachulish in May and in September cycled the Coast to Coast and back in northern England. He also enjoys regular trips to the Trossachs and to other parts of Scotland, soon to be topped off with a planned mountain bike trip to Morocco!
A fall last year at a mountain bike trail centre near Dumfries which resulted in a few broken ribs hasn’t put him off cycling with many trips for work and leisure planned for the future.